Bluebird
by fairytale ideals
Summary: There are years in every person's life that stand out to them. They might think on them and say, "Yes, that's the one that changed me forever." For Nick Duval, that year was 2014.
1. January

_Okay, hi, hello! So, here's the idea with this fic: it'll follow Nick's life over the course of the year, and so I'm hoping to post a chapter once a month. Each chapter will cover a month of the year (the first chapter is January, second will be February, etc) and my plan is to post each chapter within the first week or two of the month. Also, this is very much Niff. Jeff just won't show up for a bit. But trust me, this is **very** Niff._

_One last thing: in case you somehow managed to have not seen Frozen yet but you want to, this chapter does have some (fairly vague) spoilers for it._

* * *

When Nick gets old and wrinkly, he'll probably look back on his life. He'll probably look back and the details will be fuzzy but the most important things will still be there, clear as day. That was his hope, anyways. That was the way it went every time he looked back on his year at the start of a new one.

At any rate, when he is old and his hair has gone grey and he might maybe be struggling to remember a few things that happened when he was younger, he's sure that he'll be able to say one thing for sure: 2014 was one of the biggest, most important years of his life.

2014 was the year that he (among other things) got into a car wreck for the first time, got engaged (twice), broke up, fell in love, stole a baby goat, dropped out of college, pulled an all-nighter for the first time, got a tattoo, and traveled outside the United States.

Of course, he knew none of this as he slumped on the couch on December 31st, 2013, watching Anderson Cooper's New Year's Eve countdown show.

"Jesus Christ, Nick, it's not even eleven yet," he heard his sister say next to him, and he opened his eyes to look at her.

"Sorry, Lace, I'm tired," he replied, stretching his arms out over his head.

"Tired?" she repeated, raising her eyebrows at him. She moved down the couch over to him, practically flinging herself into his lap and gripping his shoulders. Shaking him by his shoulders, she went on, "Tired? I repeat, it's not even eleven."

Nick chuckled softly, shoving her off of him. "And _I_ repeat, I'm tired."

"I don't understand," she said, flopping back against the couch. "You went off to college and you got _way more_ boring. That makes literally no sense."

"Sorry," Nick said, shrugging. "If it helps, I go to parties sometimes. But I'm on break right now, so I need the time to recuperate."

"I wish that I believed that, I really do," she said. She got to her feet, going to the kitchen. When she returned, she had a grin on her lips and a bottle of 1800 and two shot glasses in her hands.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting you drunk," she said.

He shook his head. "As delightful as that sounds, that actually sounds like a _horrible_ idea."

"You're never any fun," she said with a groan. His objection didn't slow her down any, as she plopped herself down on the couch beside him and started to pour them both shots anyways.

"I'm not going to drink that," he told her as she handed him his shot.

Lacey raised an eyebrow at him, looking pointedly down at the shot glass, which he had taken without argument. "Aren't you?"

"No," he replied.

She let out a (frankly unbelievably loud) sigh, slumping back against the back of the couch. "Fine, make me drink alone," she mumbled before knocking back her shot.

He watched her for a moment, rolling his eyes as she leaned forward again and made it clear that her intention was to pour herself another shot. "You're not going to keep drinking that much if I don't drink at all," he said.

"I might," she said.

"You won't."

Lacey sighed, shaking her head slowly and frowning at him. "I just don't understand why you don't want to drink," she said.

"Did you know that the earlier you start drinking, the more likely you are to become an alcoholic?" he said.

"You're not going to become an alcoholic, and neither am I," she said, shaking her head. "Now stop making excuses." She reached towards him and grabbed his wrist in an attempt to lift the glass up to his lips.

Nick rolled his eyes at her before doing as she wanted, drinking the tequila. "I'm not going to drink any more of this, though," he told her.

"My baby brother really is no fun," Lacey pouted, closing the bottle without drinking any more of it. "You could've drank with me, it would've been fun."

"I don't think that it would've been, actually," he said, shaking his head.

"Oh, Nicholas," Lacey said and shook her head slowly. She stroked his hair as she continued, "You are just so, so sad and boring, and it hurts me to know that I am related to such a stick in the mud and thus might actually be partially responsible for it."

He rolled her eyes at her and gave her a light shove. "I'm not a stick in the mud."

"Yes, yes you are, you poor, hopeless soul," she said, shaking her head. "When is the last thing you've done something exciting or spontaneous?"

"All the time," he answered quickly. "I mean, it might depend on your definition of the words _exciting_ and _spontaneous_, but still. I am an interesting person."

Lacey just looked at him for a moment, the look on her face something like a predator sizing up its prey. She then got to her feet, clearly ready to take another swing at getting him to do what she wanted him to. "What time is it now?"

He glanced at the clock, wondering in the back of his mind why she couldn't look herself. "It's about eleven."

"Okay," she said as she nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed. "Okay, yeah, I think that's about enough time."

"Enough time for what?" he asked.

"A Duval decathlon." Nick groaned at the words, shaking his head slightly. Before he could protest, though, she said, "Stick in the mud."

"It's not a decathlon and it never has been, do you even _know_ what 'deca' even-"

"Wow, Ted Mosby, you are literally boring me to sleep," she said, waving off his words. "It's alliterative, it's staying. Anyways, I think we're going to have a cookoff."

"Exciting and spontaneous," he repeated dubiously.

She sighed, shaking her head slowly as she looked at him. "You are an extreme disappointment," she said. "_Anyways_, the rules are, we're making fudge, any kind of fudge, but you can't use any ingredients that are already in the house."

Nick stopped her then, frowning at her words. "No ingredients in the house," he echoed. "Then what am I supposed to use to make the fudge?"

"If you'd let me finish," Lacey said, shaking her head at him. "I would have told you that you have to run to the store up the street and buy anything you need."

"That sounds like a horrible idea," he said. "Besides, shouldn't they have closed early because of the-"

"For your sass, the rule now is that you're not allowed to use your car. You will have to literally run," she said, shaking her head in disapproval. Getting to her feet, she said, "Don't worry, they're open, I keep tabs on that shit. The challenge starts now, good luck." And with that, she was leaving the room.

Reluctantly, he got to his feet and went to put on a jacket and shoes, knowing that if he didn't at least try then Lacey would never let him hear the end of it.

"She's twenty-three years old, and yet a complete and utter child," he mumbled to himself as he stepped out into the cold night air.

Never before in his life had he been so grateful that his family's house was so close to a grocery store. The path between his home and the store was such a simple, short one that he didn't understand how Lacey could have possibly gotten ahead of him, but he knew better by now than to question it anything she did.

He got to the store and got everything he needed as quickly as possible, in part because he just wanted to be able to go home already and be done with it.

"Your sister just had a similar purchase," the cashier, a man whose hair was entirely white and whose smile was entirely warm and welcoming, said to him as he started to ring up the items. "I'm guessing she's made up another competition for you?"

"Yeah, Frank, she has," he replied, letting out a soft laugh and shaking his head slowly.

"I figured," he said with a laugh. "That sister of yours... A real piece of work." His voice held a fondness, the kind that only came from years of familiarity and a little bit of exasperation. It came from living in a small town where everyone knows everyone and you come out of retirement to work as a cashier at the grocery store just to keep up with the latest gossip.

"Yeah, she is," he said, shaking his head slightly as he pulled out his card to pay. In spite of himself, though, he couldn't help but smile as he rolled his eyes. "That's definitely a way of putting it."

Frank chuckled softly, taking the card and swiping it for him. "Let me know who wins, alright?"

"Will do," Nick affirmed with a small nod, giving him a smile.

"I won't keep you any longer, you've got a bakeoff to win, clearly," he said with a wink, handing him his bag and gesturing for him to go to the door.

Nick headed back out of the store, heading back for home. He felt a bit ridiculous practically running (it was that awkward half-walk, half-run of the self-conscious, really) from the store to home, but he told himself that 1) it was cold out, so it would be good to get home quickly, and 2) it certainly wasn't the weirdest thing anyone had ever looked out their windows to see.

When he got back to the house, Lacey was already entirely set up in the kitchen.

"Hello, sunshine," she called out, turning her head to look back at him. "I got our judge."

Sitting cross-legged on the counter was their brother (older than Nick but younger than Lacey), Charlie, who frankly looked like he had very little interest in being there.

"Promise you'll be impartial?" Nick asked him as he walked into the kitchen, chuckling softly.

"Impartial just like you were the last time Lace gave me a challenge?" Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Nick let out a laugh as he started to unpack his purchases and set to work. "In my defense, she totally did win. And also you were being annoying earlier that day," he said with a laugh.

"Which is why I threw down the gauntlet to begin with," she said with a laugh.

"I was so not being annoying," Charlie protested, shaking his head quickly.

"You definitely were," she replied. "It's just the curse of being a little brother."

"Then why isn't Nick annoying?" he asked, frowning at her.

Lacey chuckled softly, glancing over at the boy in question. "Oh, he is," she assured him. "Some days more than others. You seem to have more off days than he does, so."

Nick let out a laugh at that, grinning as he looked back and saw that Charlie was pouting at the both of them. He dipped his finger into the tub of cocoa powder that he had and then walked over to his older brother. He ran his cocoa-covered thumb across Charlie's forehead a la Rafiki, and then as an afterthought said, "_Simba_."

"Oh my god, why?" Charlie groaned, turning to the sink and turning it on, wiping the brown powder off of his face.

Lacey let out a loud laugh, turning to face Nick and giving him a high five. "That was great, Nicholas, thank you so much."

And that was how things went for the next while. They bantered and messed with each other in the no-harm-meant way that siblings did, and they finished up the fudge right about in time for the ball to drop.

They all piled onto the couch, legs and arms laying over each other i a disorganized huddle.

"Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three.. Two... One! Happy New Year!"

Lacey lifted her hands up and put her index fingers on her cheeks, looking at her brothers. "Happy New Year, boys," she said, chuckling.

A bit begrudgingly, both of the Duval brothers shifted over in order to kiss her cheeks.

"Thank you," she said with a laugh. They sat there for a while longer, just watching the now almost entirely pointless coverage go on and then end, mostly not paying too much attention to what was on the screen anyways. Eventually, Lacey nudged both of them off of her and got to her feet, saying, "I think that the fudge should be ready to at least sort of cut now. It can be tasted, anyways."

They both followed after her, going into the kitchen and watching her pull the two trays of fudge out. She handed Nick's to him and got him a knife, then pulled out a knife for herself as well. They both cut off a piece of their fudge blocks, then handed them to Charlie one at a time.

"You know, I'm pretty sure that it would've been better for you to have me do this anonymously," he pointed out, looking at the two pieces of fudge in his hands.

"But then it wouldn't have been as much fun," Nick said, frowning at him.

Lacey nodded in agreement, pouting. "And I wouldn't have been able to ring in 2014 with my two favorite boys," she said.

"We're not even your favorite boys," Charlie said, shaking his head. "Don't you have a boyfriend?"

"Not right now, long story, didn't I tell you?" she asked, then shook her head. "Anyways, stop distracting me. Taste the damn fudge."

He chuckled softly, rolling his eyes at her. He then took a bite of one of the pieces of fudge, chewing it and swallowing before tasting the other. One he finished both pieces of fudge, he gestured to Nick. "Alright, he wins."

Nick grinned widely at Charlie's words, lifting his hand up to give him a high five. He turned to Lacey with a grin. "Sorry, sis, I guess I'm just better at fudging than you."

"You are just so, so mean," she said as she sighed. "And I think you must've cheated. Maybe you paid off Charlie."

Rolling his eyes at them, Charlie gestured vaguely in the direction of his room. "If you two don't mind, I think I'm going to go to bed."

Lacey pulled him in again quickly, giving him a quick hug. "I love you anyways," she said before giving him a light shove.

"Love you too, you insane, insane girl," he said before turning and going to his room.

"Goodnight," Nick called after him as he picked up the trays of fudge and set them on the kitchen table. He and Lacey got onto the table and sat facing each other with the fudge in between them. They cut off chunks of the other's fudge, sitting in near silence for a bit and just eating for a bit.

"So," Lacey said finally, "any New Year's resolutions?"

Nick chuckled softly. "Sort of?"

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, that's the attitude that will lead to you giving up in a week."

"I hope not."

"So, spill, what is it? Is it something embarrassing?" she asked. Grinning, she continued, "Oh my god, is it something sexual? Limiting your masturbation? _Increasing_ your masturbation?"

"Jesus, Lace, shut up," he said, shaking his head and laughing softly in spite of himself. "It's not sexual."

"Spill," she repeated.

"I... I don't know if this counts as a resolution, but it's something that I want to do and I'm _going_ to do," he said. "So, I, um... I have this girlfriend."

"You said it wasn't sexual," she interrupted him. "Also, why haven't you mentioned her before? Is there something wrong with her?"

Nick chose to ignore her, pretending that she hadn't said anything. "I'm going to ask her to marry me."

Lacey stayed silent for about a full minute, just staring at him, which was quite a feat for her. Finally, she spoke again, saying just, "Seriously?"

"Yeah, seriously," he said, a small smile crossing his lips. "I love her."

"Oh god, Nick," she said, shaking her head slowly. "How long have you been dating?"

"We met in August, the night I moved into the dorm," he said. "We've kind of been going out since."

"So you've been dating her for less than half a year," she said slowly.

"Yeah, that's true," he said. "But I think that that's enough time. know everything I need to know."

"Like hell you do," she said, and it looked like it literally pained her to have to legitimately talk down to him. "There's no way that you know enough about her to be ready to marry her."

"But I do," he protested, shaking his head. "You just don't understand, because you and your boyfriend have been on and off since, well, the dawn of time."

"That's not a fair comparison," she said, shaking her head. "We were dating for over a year before we broke up the first time, and not once did either of us even consider marriage."

"You were in high school when you started dating," he pointed out.

"And you're barely out of high school now!" Lacey protested. "I get the fact that your love life was kind of shit in high school, but that's no reason to just throw yourself completely into the first girl to be nice to you in college."

"That makes it sound like I'm a child," he said.

"You're acting like one," she replied.

Nick let out a long breath. He looked at her, shaking his head slowly. "Look, just... Can we not talk about this right now?" he asked. "Can we just go to bed or something?"

She frowned at him, looking like she wanted to pursue the subject further. After a moment of internal battling, she nodded slightly in acquiescence. "Fine. But we're not done talking about it forever."

Nick nodded, knowing better than to expect her to just let it go just like that. "Alright," he said as he got off of the table. He looked back at Lacey, sighing softly. "If you want to look her up, because I'm sure you do, her name is Natalie. Natalie Colette. She's beautiful and I love her more than anything in the world."

He just stood there for a moment longer, looking at Lacey as if expecting her to say something else. She didn't, although her face told him that she might feel at least a bit bad about being so completely dismissive of his feelings.

That said, he turned around and left the room when he saw that the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere else from there. He went up the stairs and into his room, letting out a long breath as he slumped into his bed.

* * *

As promised, the topic was revisited, though Lacey gave it a bit more time than he had actually been expecting. Three days into the new year, sitting at their kitchen table eating breakfast, she let out a long breath before speaking.

"You've been dating her for, like, and this is being generous, half a year. There's no way you can marry her."

Nick shrugged, bringing his spoonful of Lucky Charms to his mouth. "Half a year is long enough. I know we belong together," he said after swallowing.

"Ugh, no," she groaned, shaking her head. "No, you don't know that."

"I might!" he said. "I know that I love her."

Lacey leaned forward, reached across the table, and gave him a smack. "That's for being an idiot."

"I'm not being an idiot," he said. "You just don't understand, because you haven't met her yet—"

"And that's another thing," Lacey cut him off with a frown, stabbing her spoon into her bowl of Cheerios. "I haven't met her, Charlie hasn't met her, Mom and Dad haven't met her. You can't get engaged to a girl that nobody in the family has met, Nicky."

Nick just shrugged slightly. "You'll meet her. Just, you know, after we get engaged."

She let out a long breath, shaking her head at him. "You should still at least introduce her before you get engaged. What if the rest of the family hates her?"

"All of you will love her," he said firmly. "She's sweet."

"Mhm, of course she is," Lacey said.

"You just don't get it, she's perfect."

"Oh my god, Nick, I thought you were better than this," she said with a frown. "I mean, shit, sunshine, you're nineteen. Barely nineteen. You're supposed to be out getting drunk at parties—"

"You're encouraging me to break the law," he pointed out.

"Everyone does in college," she said, her hand lifting and making a motion as if to literally wave off his words. "Point is, you're supposed to be living it up at college right now. You know, partying and hooking up with random chicks and hoping you don't get any of them pregnant. You're not supposed to be, what, planning a wedding? Oh dear god, no."

"Lacey, I get that you're trying to help here, but I know what I'm doing," he said.

"I'm just not sure that you do."

"Well, I am. And I am going to do it, whether or not you approve."

"Nick," Lacey got to her feet and moved in closer to him. She cupped his face in her hands, rubbing her thumbs over his cheekbones. "You poor, poor idiot. You're so lucky you're my baby brother and I have to love you."

"If you really loved me, you'd be happy for me," he said, shaking his head and pouting just slightly.

She sighed, standing back up and grabbing her bowl. She put it in the sink before turning back to face him. "Fine. Do it. Just remember this when I have to pick up the pieces after you break up or get divorced or whatever."

"We're not going to break up or get divorced," he protested. "Or whatever."

"Sure," she said, turning and leaving him by himself in the room.

He stayed where he was for a bit, his gaze resting on the doorway she had disappeared through. He knew, logically, that Lacey did in fact have a point. But still, he didn't want to admit to that, especially not with how she expressed so little faith in his relationship and judgment.

* * *

Nick woke up a few mornings later to the weight of another body landing on top of his. Half asleep, he shoved at it and mumbled, "Nat, off. Ten minutes."

"Oh, gross," Lacey's voice groaned from above him, followed by the sound and slight sting of her smacking his back lightly. She shifted to settle on top of him more, saying, "Wake up, Nick."

Nick groaned, opening his eyes and turning his head to look up at Lacey. He rolled over, dislodging her and sending her rolling onto the mattress beside him. "What do you want?"

"With that attitude, maybe I'll just take back my offer and go invite Charles instead of you," she said, shaking her head. "And you _know_ I don't want to have to do that."

"You like Charlie, and whatever it is, you're probably going to invite him, regardless," he said as he shifted to get into a position to look at her better.

"I already invited him," she admitted.

"To what, exactly?"

"We're going to go see Frozen," she said excitedly, grinning at him.

"Frozen?" he echoed. "Like, the Disney movie? With the ice?"

"Yes, that's why it's called Frozen. Ice. It's frozen."

Nick let out a long breath and shook his head slowly at her. "Honestly, Lace, this is why some people don't like being around you," he said.

She chuckled softly, grabbing at his hands and pulling him so that he was sitting up in his bed. "Just get dressed, I'm not taking no for an answer," she said.

"You do remember that I am neither five years old nor a girl, right?" he asked.

"I do remember that," Lacey replied with a heavy sigh, shaking her head at him as if in disappointment. "But it's a good movie. I've already seen it three times."

"You—three times?" he asked loudly, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"It's true," he heard Charlie's voice through the wall. "This will be my third time."

Nick paused for a moment, just looking at his sister. "You're literally insane," he told her.

"No, I'm not," she said, waving off his words. "It's just a really good movie."

"It is," Charlie interjected.

Nick rolled his eyes at his siblings. "You guys are both children," he said.

"And proud," Lacey said with a nod. She grabbed at his hands again, trying to pull him up.

He rolled his eyes at her actions but (reluctantly) did as she wanted him to, getting to his feet slowly. He gestured for her to get out of the room so that he could get dressed, and he did so slowly, as if he thought that 1) going to the movies was the sort of event that required a well-thought-out ensemble, or maybe 2) if he took long enough, Lacey and Charlie might just give up and go to the theater without him.

Neither really happened, if Nick was to be honest with you. He ended up just putting on pants and a shirt that might have been dirty, and grabbing a jacket as he walked out into the hallway, where his brother joined him and ushered him towards the front door.

"It really feels like you're rushing me right now," he said.

"I am," Charlie affirmed with a nod, leaning back against the wall and watching him as he put on his shoes.

"Why?"

"It's a good movie."

Nick raised an eyebrow at him. "Is it really that good of a movie?"

"Of course it is," Lacey replied with a shrug.

"Is that why we're going to go see it before noon?" he asked.

"Well, yeah," she said. "And also because the theater is starting to phase it out, you know, get new movies in. And I would be a horrible sister if I didn't make sure that you saw this."

Nick let out a long breath, but he decided not to fight it anymore. It was moot at this point, really, and it wasn't even like he was that opposed to going to go see the movie, anyways. His opposition, at the end of the day, was probably more the idea of being woken up for such a thing than anything else.

* * *

And so Nick found himself sitting in a dark theater, sandwiched between two people who had seen the movie before and were, of course, the sort of people who liked to sing along.

(Lacey wasn't a bad singer, and had in fact been a part of the school's choir for a couple of years until she realized that she absolutely hated it; Charlie, on the other hand, was probably the most tone deaf, painfully bad singer Nick had ever heard in his life.)

It wasn't a bad movie. It really wasn't. In fact, it was a really good movie. He would probably (especially knowing his siblings) watch it again, and might recommend it to others to watch. While he would always tell you that he wasn't a big fan of recent movies by Disney, he'd also admit that Frozen was not at all what he was expecting it to be and that that was refreshing.

What was not refreshing, however, was the look Lacey gave him as they were walking out to go back to their car.

At first he thought that it was just her looking at him and trying to be sure by the look on his face that he enjoyed the movie as much as she felt that he should have. But then he remembered what some of the plot of the movie had revolved around, and it was no surprise when she opened her mouth and said, "I genuinely didn't take you to go see that movie to teach you anything or show you an example or anything, but since I did… Natalie could be Hans."

"You don't know Natalie," he said, shaking her head.

"Neither did Elsa," Charlie pointed out brightly.

He turned to look at Charlie, glaring slightly. "She told you?"

"Of course she did," he said with a nod. "You're going to ask a girl to marry you and you expect Lacey, _Lacey of all people_ not to say anything?"

"Alright, fine, you have a point there," he said with a sigh. "But still, I'm not making a mistake."

"That's what Anna thought!" Lacey said quickly. "And look how that turned out."

"I didn't just meet Natalie today," he pointed out.

"Well, sure, but you also haven't been completely hermitted for the past several years, so, you know, you have to give her a little leeway there," she said. "And she at least had the decency to bring the potential fiancé around."

"They were engaged before Elsa met Hans," Nick said.

Charlie sighed, shaking his head slowly. "But Anna didn't know Hans would propose. You know you're going to propose. Introducing us beforehand is the least you can do."

"Look, you guys will meet her," Nick said, shaking his head slightly. "Just not yet. And as soon as you meet her, you'll feel silly for ever having doubted me on this."

"I somehow doubt that," Lacey said with a small frown.

"How do you know that Natalie is the one? She's your first real girlfriend," Charlie pointed out. "For the point of this conversation, she was Hans. But she might not be evil. Maybe. Who knows?" He paused for a moment before remembering what the point he'd been trying to make was. "_Anyways_, what I'm trying to get at here is, maybe she _is _your Hans, and your Kristoff is still out there, waiting for you."

"A crazy guy with a reindeer and trolls for family?"

Lacey's frown deepened at those words. "Wow, you really watched that movie all wrong. Kristoff is, like, the greatest. He's so sweet," she said.

"Well, be that as it may, I think I'll take my chances with Natalie," he said. "Because I'm sure that she isn't just my Hans."

There was a moment of silence in the car as the three of them let the words they'd all just said sink in.

And then, "Wait, if Nick is, in theory, Anna, then who is Elsa? Me or Lacey? And what does that make the other?"

From there the conversation took a nosedive into who would make a better Elsa, an argument that seemed to have no real valid points contributing to it (besides Lacey's insistence that her rendition of Let It Go was "godly") as well as a complete and utter lack of winning on either side.

It gave Nick an opportunity to take a breath; this was normal, this he could handle. He wasn't used to Lacey or Charlie being serious about anything, especially not both of them at the same time (not to mention the source of their seriousness being Nick's actions). This was easier.

* * *

As much as Nick loved being at home with his family, there was still definitely something to be said for heading back to school.

An hour and a half before he arrived back on campus, his phone went off:

From Nat :  
Hey you. You're coming back today, right?

He smiled to himself as he read the message, then hit the Call button and put it on speaker.

"_Already on the road_?" Natalie's voice came from the phone, and it felt to Nick like it filled the car with warmth.

"Yeah, I am," he said, glancing at the phone with a smile as if she would be able to see it. "I'll be at my dorm in probably about an hour or two. I can give you a more specific time frame as I get closer."

"_Think I should stop by?"_

"Of course," he said, chuckling softly. "I've missed you."

"_Mhm,_" she hummed, and it made him ache. _"I've missed you too._"

"I can't wait to see you," he said.

"_Same here," _her voice was a little bit sad, or at least he thought her heard some sadness in there. _"But hey, we've got the whole weekend to spend together._"

Nick smiled at the thought, nodding. "Yeah, we do," he said, chuckling softly. "Can't wait."

Natalie laughed softly. "_I'll bet you can't_," she said. He could practically hear her rolling her eyes at him.

"I'm just being honest," he said with a chuckle. "In a totally innocent way, I promise you."

"_I'll believe that when I see it_," she replied. A moment passed before either of them said anything else, and then Natalie said, _"Well, anyways, I'm going to let you go, okay? I need to go shower. You focus on driving, and I'll see you soon_."

Nick nodded slowly, letting out a soft sigh. "Alright, see you soon," he said.

"Love you, Nick," she said.

"I love you too, Nat."

His phone beeped in his hand, telling him that she had hung up. He set the phone down, a grin on his face. Any doubt about what he was planning on doing that Lacey and Charlie had put into his mind was now going away and being replaced by the pleasant happiness settling in his stomach at the reminder of how good it felt to talk to Natalie. They had texted quite a bit over the course of their winter break, but between her busy schedule and his (lovingly) overbearing siblings, they hadn't really had an opportunity to talk on the phone, Skype, or anything along those lines since they had parted ways. But absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.

The drive was long. Or at least it felt like it was. This was the third time that Nick had made the drive from home back to university, but this was the first time that he was going with such a big goal in mind. Something about that made the drive feel simultaneously shorter and longer, even though he knew it wasn't like he was about to just get out of the car and get down on one knee. It was just the thought of it, the conviction he was now approaching the situation with.

That thought was also strong enough for him to sit in his car for about ten minutes after he got back to campus, sitting with his fingers still curled around his steering wheel.

_You're not _about_ to propose_, he reminded himself. _Not yet, anyways. You have nothing to worry about right now. She has no idea you're going to do this. Nothing you say will make her think you're going to do this._

He was startled out of his internal pep talk by the sound of his phone going off with a new message.

From Nat :  
You here yet? I'm in your dorm, your roommate let me in.

And then, a moment later:

From Nat :  
He left, by the way. I'm not sure that he likes me.

From Nat :  
Wait, sorry, if you're driving, you shouldn't be reading my texts.

Nick chuckled to himself as he looked at the messages which came in all within a minute or two of each other. The easy way she talked to him in the texts put his mind at ease again, reminding him that this was Natalie and thus far Natalie had been nothing but an entirely positive force in his life.

So he decided to just get out of the car, ending both her misery and his. He stepped into the cold air, quickly pulling out his dorm keys and heading inside.

Almost as soon as he was opening up the door to go into his room, he had an armful of tiny blonde girl thrown at him.

"Hi," Natalie greeted brightly as she wrapped her arms around him.

Nick smiled softly, enveloping her in his arms and giving her a squeeze. "Hi."

"I missed you," she said, nuzzling her face into his shoulder.

"I missed you too," he murmured.

"Good," she said. "You better have."

"I did, I did," he assured her as he pressed his nose into her hair, taking in a deep breath. She smelled like fruity shampoo and his mother's old makeup box.

Natalie hummed softly in reply, taking a few steps backwards and pulling him towards his bed. She pulled him down onto the bed with her and they curled up against each other.

"I love you," he said softly, pressing a kiss to her lips, which quirked up in the corners in response.

"I love you too," she said, tilting her head up slightly and kissing his nose. She shifted to pull the blanket over them, letting out a soft breath. There were a few minutes of silence in which they just looked at each other and shared a few kisses, before Natalie mumbled, "We're having reunion sex later. Not right now. Not that you're not hot, but sex sounds like a lot of work."

Nick let out a soft laugh, nodding slightly. "That's fine," he said, kissing her again softly. "I can work with that."

And he did. It was for the best, too, he thought, since he had spent the earlier part of the day in his car and right then he was honestly just feeling a bit tired. Laying there with his girlfriend gave him the opportunity to just sit and listen to her voice as she told him all about what she had done over the break. It didn't much matter that he already knew most of it from text messages and what she had told him she was planning to do before they'd even left for break. All that mattered to him then was the ebb and flow of her voice soft in his ear (and less soft when she got to a topic she was particularly excited about, but that was cute too because she was a little sick and when the pitch of her voice went higher it broke a little bit) and how soft her hair was as he ran his fingers through it.

He wasn't even sure, really, when or how he started to drift off. Well, maybe he did know how—it was damn near impossible not to be completely relaxed when you're snuggled up with a warm, pretty girl who had a voice that, in his opinion, belonged to an angel or maybe that was what it would sound like if songbirds could speak.

"…and I didn't even end up going back for, like, five hours, since… Nick?" she said softly, her voice trailing off and getting softer as she looked at him and saw that his eyes were closed.

Nick made a soft noise to acknowledge her, but didn't open his eyes again.

She chuckled softly, brushing her lips against his forehead. "I love you, you silly boy."

He smiled at her words, his voice slurred with sleep as he returned the sentiment. And just like that, he fell asleep, completely happy for that moment.


	2. February

Nick had a good relationship with his roommate, he did. They considered themselves friends, and sometimes they went out together. Not always, sometimes they'd go for days without having any real conversations, but it wasn't an unamicable lack of communication. All things considered, it was a fairly lucky random roommate assignment, and he was fairly certain that the two of them would end up rooming together again next year.

The boy was also surprisingly understanding and cool with having to make himself scarce from time to time when Nick needed to have some alone time with Natalie. And when the couple didn't need their privacy, the three of them hung out and all got on well together.

So, it shouldn't have been surprising to Nick when Bennett had an opinion on his plan to ask her to marry him.

"You can't propose to the girl on Valentine's Day," he said, breaking a silence they had fallen into, both of them poring over coursework. It had been nearly half an hour since Nick had said that that was what he was planning on doing; when Bennett hadn't said anything in reply, he figured that he probably wasn't listening or just didn't care.

"What?" Nick asked, looking up from what he was doing and raising an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"Because it's tacky as hell, for starters," Bennett replied with a small shrug, shaking his head. "And besides, not that I'm saying you'll ever break up with Natalie, she's a sweet girl and all, I wish you nothing but the best, et cetera, et cetera, but still. If y'all break up, she's got legal rights to the ring, and sure, what're you gonna do with it, but…"

Nick paused for a moment after Bennett spoke. He had been getting his arguments up, pulling out his mental flashcards of bulletin points about Why Marrying Natalie Is Not a Bad Idea. It hadn't even occurred to him that maybe his roommate didn't care whether or not he was throwing himself into this too young, or maybe he believed in them. The thought that someone might oppose simply because of the day he had chosen had yet to cross his mind. "Oh," he said, nodding slightly. "Well… I don't really care if she'd keep the ring. Like you said, what am I going to do with it?"

Bennett paused for a moment, picking up his phone and tapping at the screen. "This is just an idea, but I think it's a good one," he said with a laugh, tossing the phone over to him. "It's called I Do Now I Don't, and it is probably my favorite website on the internet."

He looked down at the phone curiously, furrowing his brow as all he saw at first was just a bunch of glitzy jewelry. After a moment, he realized what it was: people who had been engaged, married, or whatever else, selling their rings when it didn't work out.

"Some of the rings and all that have stories," Bennett said with a laugh. "It's the greatest."

"This is absolutely terrible," Nick said, shaking his head slightly. That didn't stop him from clicking through a few of the rings and reading some of the stories anyways, though after a few minutes he threw the phone back to his roommate.

Bennett looked down at the phone with a grin before shaking his head slightly. "Oh, right, there was a point that we were making here," he said. "Like I said, you can't propose to her on Valentine's Day."

"I think that it would be really sweet," he protested.

"The only thing worse than proposing on Valentine's Day is getting married on Valentine's Day," he said, shaking his head. When Nick opened his mouth again, he added quickly, "Don't get any ideas. I refuse to attend a Valentine's Day wedding."

"You know, some might say that you're just bitter because you don't have a special someone," he said with a grin.

Bennett just sighed, giving him a hard look. "That is absolutely not true."

"It seems pretty true to me," he said, chuckling.

"It's not," he said. "And trust me, I'm not even sure that I'd want a Valentine. Like I said, tacky."

"You're just sad and lonely."

"I think I'd rather be sad and lonely than have to deal with a girlfriend like yours," he said, shaking his head.

"What's wrong with Natalie?" he asked with a frown.

"Nothing serious," he said. "She just is… so damn enthusiastic. It is tiring and I feel like to have a normal conversation with her she'd need some Adderall or something. She's sweet, sure, but just way too much. And, you know, she has hairy toes, which she can't help, but I have to think that she _can _help plucking the hair in our room."

"That was one time," Nick protested.

"This is just like that time that I got a pizza with a bug on it, and then my brother tried to order pizza from the same place another time, and he said that it was just one bug one time," he said. "Do you know how many bugs is enough to ruin a pizza shop for me forever? One! One bug is all it takes."

"You're going off on a tangent here, Ben," he said with a laugh, shifting to lay down on his bed but still looking over at him.

"Right, right," he said. "I just mean, she had _no_ qualms with bringing her tweezers over here and dehairing her toes. It's just weird. And if she's so open about that, what is she hiding?"

Nick let out a soft laugh, rolling his eyes fondly at him. "She's not hiding anything."

"Oh, come on," he said. "Everyone is hiding something."

"Not Natalie," he replied. "She is seriously an open book."

"If that's true," Bennett said, "and that's a big if… Then yes, go ahead, propose to her, marry her, right now. However, just remember, you two will have hairy-toed children."

Nick let out a laugh, rolling his eyes fondly. "I won't love them any less because of it," he said.

"They'll be called Hobbits," he said. "Or Wookies. Something with hair in unusual places."

"Those references might be out of date by then," he said.

"Woah, woah, woah, slow your roll, Duval," he said, his face having gotten dead serious. "Star Wars will never be outdated."

Nick laughed loudly, rolling his eyes fondly. "Oh my god, shut up, you're such a nerd," he said through his laughter.

Bennett chuckled, grinning at Nick. "But you love me," he said.

"Nope, I don't, I really don't," he said.

Bennett got up from his bed, going over and getting onto Nick's, climbing over him and tackling him into a hug, sending him into another fit of hilarity. "You love me," he repeated.

"No, I don't, you won't change my mind," he said.

Tightening his arms around him, he said, "Just admit it, you love me. I'd say it. I love _you_."

"This has got to be the gayest thing that has ever happened to me," he said, chuckling.

Bennett nodded quickly, grinning at him. "There's no shame in my game."

Nick's phone went off beside them, and he gave Bennett a good-natured shove, sending him rolling onto his side beside him on the bed. "Okay, lover boy, get off, gotta talk to the girlfriend," he said.

"You always choose her over me," Bennett said with a pout, putting his hand over his heart.

"Oh shush, you always knew that it would be like this."

"Go ahead, choose her hairy toes," he said.

Rolling his eyes fondly, Nick answered the phone and pointedly ignored the kicked puppy look his roommate was giving him in favor of paying attention to what Natalie was saying. After a few minutes of conversation with her, he hung up, stumbling over Bennett to get out of bed. "I may or may not be back tonight," he said once he was on his feet, looking back at his roommate. "Hopefully when I get back, you've returned to your own bed."

"No promises," Bennett replied with a small shrug. "Your bed is awfully comfy, and mine is covered in books. So."

"You're the worst roommate ever," he said, shaking his head.

"You could sleep on my bed," Bennett offered.

"Not helping," he said.

"I don't care too much about helping, sorry, bud," he said, chuckling. "I am just too comfortable."

Nick rolled his eyes at him, turning around to go to the door. Glancing back over his shoulder at Bennett, who was already starting to drag himself to his feet to get back onto his own bed, he said, "If you get so inspired, you could do me a huge favor and find a good, relatively cheap florist in town."

"I'm not sure that I want to do that," he said, shaking his head. "But maybe."

"Or sign up for eHarmony or something," he said. "Find yourself a girlfriend."

"I keep getting emails for something called Senior People Meet," Bennett replied with a grin.

"Well then, there you go, there's your calling," he said with a laugh, rolling his eyes fondly as he opened up the door and walking out.

* * *

As it turned out, planning a marriage proposal was a lot harder than Nick thought it would be.

He knew, in theory, that it probably wouldn't matter what he did. If Natalie was going to say yes, then she wouldn't care how exactly he asked, it would just matter that he had in fact asked.

But still, he wanted it to be special. And, just like Bennett had said, he eventually realized that a Valentine's Day proposal was incredibly cliché and probably wasn't his most creative and impressive idea ever.

He didn't want to just get her some flowers or chocolates and call it a day. He didn't want to sing to her or to hire somebody to play a song for her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to propose to her in public or in private; for that matter, he didn't know what _she _would want.

And speaking of what she would want, he wasn't sure what kind of ring she would want. He dragged Bennett out to the mall to try to help him pick out a ring, but even with his roommate's almost amazing ability to dress himself, the pair was absolutely hopeless.

They went to three different jewelry stores, and at each one they arrived at the same conclusion: they were miserably lost when it came to trying to pick out a ring. As far as Nick could tell, there was no difference between any of the styles of rings.

Eventually he resorted to calling Lacey, which, upon him telling her what he was calling for, resulted in a solid minute of nothing but her groaning unintelligibly into the phone. Once she accepted that fact that he was neither going to hang up or give up on proposing, she talked him through what he could look for in a ring and told him that ultimately it would just be a matter of which one felt right and wasn't ridiculously expensive.

He accepted her advice and went back to the stores to try to find something. He ended up getting one that was probably simultaneously too expensive for him and one of the cheapest rings the Kay had. But still, it was a pretty ring and he was sure that she would end up loving it just as much as she would a ring that cost thousands on thousands of dollars.

As Valentine's Day got closer, so did a snowstorm.

"We should get snowed in together," Natalie said to him with a laugh as they lounged on the couch I her apartment, watching the news. "It'll be, like, a foot of snow, so we'll be able to get out, but it's the thought that counts, I think."

"I thought that getting snowed in wasn't really something you planned for?" Nick replied, raising an eyebrow at him.

She shrugged, chuckling softly. "I don't know, I don't think it really matters whether it's planned or not," she said. "No truly romantic moment happens organically anymore. Or ever, I don't really know."

"What about how we met?" he asked.

"Oh, god, no," Natalie replied with a quick shake of her head. "That wasn't random or organic at all."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You _fell_ out of a _window_."

"Because I knew you would be walking by!" she said. "You had a pretty smile and an almost terrifyingly precise schedule, I'd had a few drinks and a little crush on you."

"No way did you know I would walk by right at that exact moment," he said, shaking his head. "No way."

"It's true," she replied, holding up her hands to show him that none of her fingers were crossed. "Though I genuinely didn't mean to fall out the window. We had some friends over, I saw on the clock that you were about to walk by, so I went to the window to point you out to another girl—Lindsey, you know her—and I guess I leaned forward too much."

"I still don't believe you," he said.

She chuckled softly, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "Okay," she said. "You just keep on believing in your _totally romantic_ version of how we met, in which the girl of your dreams is wasted, falls out a window, and pukes on your shoes when you try to help her."

"It _was_ romantic," Nick said, shaking his head, "just… not in a classical sense. It led to great things, anyways."

"Anyways, point is, we should get snowed in together," she said as she leaned forward, grabbing the remote off the table. "You should come over on Thursday and plan to spend forever here with me. Assuming, of course, your roommate can live without you." She glanced back at him with a grin, winking.

"He'll be fine," he said, rolling his eyes fondly at her.

"Are you sure? Sometimes he seems a little dependent on you," she teased as she flipped the channel to something else. "He's probably got a big ole crush on you."

"He's not even gay," he said, waving off her words. "And besides, I'm not getting snowed in with anyone but you."

Natalie smiled as she set the remote back down, flopping back down against the couch and against him. "Good," she said, shifting so that she could kiss him. "We'll have the place all to ourselves, because Holly's taking a few days off and going home for the weekend to see her own lover boy."

"I guess I have to come then," he said with a soft laugh. "You know, just so you won't be all alone here."

She chuckled, grinning at him. "I'll try and make it worth your while."

* * *

Part of Nick's plans had involved not being in her apartment. Actually, all of his plans.

Okay, if he were to be honest, he would admit that even as late as February 12th, he hadn't really had any plans that were actually set in stone, aside from their dinner reservation, which Natalie herself had actually made. All he knew was that he had wanted to go out to dinner with her and then they'd go for a walk _somewhere_ he hadn't decided yet, during which he would get down on one knee and ask her to marry him.

(In hindsight, this half-baked plan was even less well-thought-through than he had originally realized it was: it was February, and this wasn't California or something so being outside for a long period of time wouldn't exactly be enjoyable or particularly romantic.)

So as he sat on Natalie's couch looking out the window at the snow falling from the sky outside on Thursday, it occurred to him that it was probably a good thing that he had never really figured out an actual plan to propose to her.

"How deep do you suppose it is now?" she asked as she saw that he was looking out the window again. She leaned her chin on his shoulder, gazing in the same direction.

"No idea," he said. "Several inches."

"That was your answer when I asked an hour ago," she pointed out, elbowing him lightly.

Nick chuckled softly, rolling his eyes. "Well, it's my best guess," he said.

"Oh yeah, of course," she said, shaking her head slowly. "How do you ever win bets, Duval?"

"I generally don't actually bet," he said with a small shrug.

"Ugh, I'm dating a tragically boring person," Natalie said, groaning. She got to her feet, walking over to the closed door of her roommate's bedroom. "I'm going to get a ruler, and you're going to figure out how much snow you think there is on the ground."

Nick chuckled softly, rolling her eyes as she disappeared into the other girl's bedroom. He got up and walked over to the window (the very same one she had fallen out of several months ago, though at some point between then and now she had acquired a screen), leaning against the window frame as he looked out.

Once she came back out, slapping a wooden ruler against her hand, she asked, "So, how many inches?"

He chuckled at her words, and when she rolled her eyes at him and mumbled something about him being _literally a child, Jesus Christ_, he said, "I don't know. Six."

"Okay," Natalie said, walking up beside him and leaning into him lightly as she looked out at the ground below them. "Eight."

"And what if it's neither of those?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow.

She slipped her hand that wasn't holding the ruler into his, pulling him towards the door. "I don't know," she said. "Whoever gets closer, I guess. C'mon, let's go outside and measure it."

Nick nodded, glancing down at what she was wearing. "Babe, you're still in your pajama shorts," he pointed out. "And barefoot. It's cold out."

She looked down at herself, shrugging. "I'll be fine," she said as they stepped out of the apartment, closing the door behind them. She turned around and kissed him softly, adding, "Besides, if I get too cold, then you can hold me and warm me back up once we get back inside."

He rolled his eyes fondly at her and pulled his jacket tighter around himself (early on in their relationship, he had tried to do the typical chivalrous guy thing and offer to let her wear his jacket, but she had laughed and refused, saying it wasn't her size) as they stepped out in the cold.

Natalie turned her head up to look up at the sky, snowflakes falling on her and nestling themselves in her hair. She stuck her tongue out, laughing as she tried to catch the flakes. After a moment she seemed to remember what she came outside for, and turned back to Nick with a grin, brandishing the ruler. "Wait, what're the stakes here?" she asked.

"I don't know, five bucks?" he said.

"Five bucks!" she repeated with a grin, turning back and stepping off the sidewalk onto the more thickly covered grass. He could see her tense slightly as her bare feet hit the deeper cold snow, but she didn't seem to care that much as she bent over and stuck the ruler into the snow.

Nick stepped in closer, leaning forward and trying to see what the ruler was measuring.

"It's about seven inches," she said, glancing back at him and laughing. "So, who wins?"

"Well, is it closer to six or to eight?" he asked.

She knelt back down, looking at it closer and squinting. "Not sure," she said.

"That probably means it's closer to six, knowing you," he said.

"Not even!" she said, looking back at him with a small frown.

Looking closer, he shook his head slightly. "No… That is absolutely less than seven."

"It's not," she said.

"No, look at that, it's definitely lower," he said. "You'd have to be blind to think it's closer to eight."

"Go ahead, keep arguing it," she said. She looked up at the sky with a grin, watching the snow drift down from the sky. "I've got all day."

Nick let out a soft laugh, rolling his eyes at her. "Just accept it, baby, you lost," he said.

"Not true," she said as she stood up. "I won."

"You absolutely lost," he replied, shaking his head. "It is not even close."

She stepped in closer to him, placing her hands lightly on his chest. "I won," she repeated, leaning in and kissing him slowly. Against his lips, she mumbled, "Right?"

Nick sighed softly, shaking his head slightly. "Kissing me will not make you win."

She pouted at him, saying, "Won't it? You love me, though. You love my kisses."

"My love for you has nothing to do with how much snow there is on the ground," he replied.

"That's just because you're not a metaphor person," Natalie replied with a small shrug.

"That would be a horrible metaphor," he pointed out. "Snow is cold and wet, which is pretty much the opposite of love. And also, yeah, like my love for you, there's a lot of it, but there's just… There's going to be way too much of it, so it's not even fun anymore."

"There's no problem with loving someone too much," she replied as she turned to head back for the door. "It's poetic. What's that Mumford and Sons song?"

"Also a bad example," he replied with a laugh.

Natalie laughed softly, shaking her head slightly. "One day, I'll have an amazing example," she said. "You'll love it."

"Maybe _you _are the one who isn't a metaphor person," he said.

"I might not be, but you aren't either," she said with a small shrug. They stepped back into the building, Natalie letting out a huff of air and rubbing her arms as she shivered. "C'mon, let's get back up there."

"You wouldn't be so cold if you had just stopped for a moment to put on a jacket, or, you know, shoes," he said with a fond roll of his eyes.

"Shh, you," she said with a soft laugh. She leaned towards him as she walked, giving him a light smack. "I have you to keep me warm. You're like a goddamn furnace."

Nick laughed softly, shaking his head as they went up the stairs. "I'm not that warm," he said. Shaking his head slowly as she lifted her hands and held them near him as one would by a fireplace, he added, "You're just ridiculously cold all the time."

"I am not ridiculously cold," Natalie replied as they stepped back into her apartment. She grabbed his jacket and slid it off his shoulders and down his arms, then set it on the back of the couch. Taking his hand, she said, "Let's go lay down."

He smiled softly and obliged her, going into her bedroom with her. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his shirt (earning a thumbs up and a playful catcall from his girlfriend) before sliding into the bed beside her, tugging the blanket up over them.

Almost immediately she moved in closer to him, wrapping her arms around him and leaning against him. "So warm," she hummed, her knuckles lightly pressing against the skin on his back.

"So cold," he replied, but there was only laughter behind his voice so she didn't do anything about it, just laughed and buried her face in his neck. He ran his fingers through her brown hair, feeling the melted remnants of the snowflakes that she'd been catching.

It wasn't long after that that Natalie stopped shivering and just relaxed completely against him, and an even shorter amount of time after _that _that she started to snore softly. He chuckled softly to himself, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head before closing his eyes as well.

Nick didn't fall asleep, since it was only midafternoon at that point and he didn't have his girlfriend's talent for being able to sleep anywhere and at any time. He just laid there instead, listening to her breathing and occasionally drifting a little bit into sleep before a snore brought him back to reality.

It was getting dark by the time Natalie woke up again, and she insisted on going out in the cold again to check and see how high the snow was piling up. He nearly had to force her into a pair of boots and a jacket before going outside to find out that the snow was up to about a foot.

"We're snowed in!" Natalie declared as they walked back inside, grinning as she flopped down on the couch to pull off the footwear.

"I don't think we're snowed in," he said with a laugh. "I mean, we were just outside."

"We can't drive anywhere."

"But we could still walk places if we needed to," he said, chuckling.

"Well, we're not going to," she said. "Classes are cancelled for tomorrow, and we're snowed in. Maybe you know how to handle snow, Mr. I Lived in Michigan Until Two Years Ago, but the rest of us call this weather treacherous and dangerous."

Nick chuckled as he sat down beside her. "You're exaggerating," he said, rolling his eyes fondly at her.

"Just barely," she said, leaning back against him as she picked up her laptop from the coffee table. She pulled up Netflix and they started to watch the first season of Scrubs, and a few hours later they fell asleep just like that.

* * *

When Nick woke up on Valentine's Day on his girlfriend's couch with her wrapped around him almost uncomfortably tightly, three things immediately came to his mind: 1) he was going to propose to her today, 2) they were not going to leave the apartment at all that day, and 3) he was going to have to improvise a proposal.

For a moment he considered getting up and starting to make her some breakfast. If nothing else, doing so would not only be romantic but it would also give him an opportunity to think about what he might want to do and/or be able to do within the apartment and the general area around the building.

But then she shifted over in his arms, her hold on him getting just a bit snugger, and he knew that he wouldn't be getting up soon. Besides, there probably wasn't too much in the kitchen to work with, so there wasn't really much point in trying to pull something together.

He stayed laying there for a while, not wanting to move just in case doing so might disturb her sleep. His hands absentmindedly ran through her hair as he tried to come up with something, knowing that he'd have to put in more effort to make it special and memorable now that there were limits on what he could do.

Eventually she uncurled herself like a dandelion popping up in the beginning of spring (a thought that felt out of place with winter still firmly holding onto them), letting go of Nick and mumbling, "We shouldn't have fallen asleep on the couch."

Nick chuckled softly, nodding. "That's true," he said. "I don't think we meant to."

She flopped back against the couch, draping herself over it and stretching out in order to crack her bones after sleeping in the unusual position. "We should've tried harder not to if we didn't mean to," she said.

"Right, right," he said, rolling his eyes fondly at her.

"Anyways, I think I'm about dead," she said. "My back won't pop."

"Not at all dramatic," he commented with a soft laugh.

"You don't know," she said. "I could die."

Nick shook his head slowly, finally moving to get up from his position. He lifted his arms up over his head to stretch as he got to his feet, looking down at her. "I'm going to grab some water from the fridge. You need anything?"

She paused for a moment before answering. "Um, yeah, actually," she said with a nod. "Could I convince you to fix me up a bowl of Lucky Charms?"

"Yeah, I can do that for you," he said, chuckling softly as he turned away. He had just gotten into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water for himself when an idea struck him. He brought the water back to the living room, setting it down on the counter. "I'll get your cereal in a moment, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Ugh, couldn't it wait?" Natalie asked with a laugh as she watched him walking towards the bathroom. "You're going to make my cereal with your penis hands."

"I would literally pay you to never use the phrase 'penis hands' ever again," he told her.

As he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, he heard her calling after him, "You owe me five dollars, Duval, don't you forget."

Nick rolled his eyes to himself as he opened up a drawer under the sink, pushing a few things out of the way in order to find what he was looking for. When he had gotten there the day before, he'd put the ring box in there, hiding it where he knew she never really looked. He stuck the ring in the pocket of his sweatpants, then flushed the toilet and washed his hands for good measure.

He stepped back out of the bathroom and went to the kitchen, grabbing the Lucky Charms from the cabinet. He poured it into a bowl and then added milk, glancing over his shoulder to check that Natalie was still laying on the couch before pulling out the ring again. He looked at it for a moment, hesitating, before dropping it into the bowl and watching it disappear into the cereal and marshmallows.

By the time he worked up his nerves to bring the bowl of cereal into the living room, Natalie had pulled herself to sit up finally. She smiled as he came back in, reaching out and taking it from him.

"Happy Valentine's Day, by the way," he said to her with a small smile.

She paused for a moment, furrowing her brow. "Oh," she said. "Yeah, it _is_ Valentine's Day, isn't it? Huh."

Nick chuckled softly to himself, grabbing the bottle of water and opening it. "Such a romantic," he said before taking a sip.

"Can't help it," Natalie said with a soft laugh.

Watching her eat the bowl of cereal was more stressful than Nick ever thought something could be. He had seen her method before, how she inspected each spoonful before eating it, making sure to eat the cereal before the marshmallows. So he was sure that she wouldn't accidentally eat the ring without realizing it or anything. But still, today she seemed to be eating even slower than usual, as if she just knew that he was waiting for her to get on with it already.

Eventually, it finally showed up. Encircling a rainbow-shaped marshmallow, there was the ring, shining up at them.

Natalie frowned slightly as she looked down at it. "What's that?"

Chuckling a bit nervously, Nick reached forward and took the ring out of her spoon and moved to the floor, getting down on one knee. He grinned at her as he saw the shock filling her face. "Natalie Colette Smith," he said slowly, smiling at her. "My beautiful, amazing girlfriend."

"Nick…" she said slowly, her eyes wide and her voice barely audible.

"I love you more than I have words to say," he said. "And I never really thought that I would find someone who makes me feel the way that you do. But now that I've found you… Plenty of people have been telling me that we're too young, that I should wait, but… I think that when you find the right one, you just know. And I know with you, Nat. So… Will you marry me?"

There was a long silence between them as Nick looked at Natalie expectantly and she looked back at him with big eyes that looked like they were still deciding how exactly to feel.

But then, finally, Natalie set her cereal bowl down (less than carefully, considering the milk still in it) and threw her arms around him, kissing him eagerly. "Yes," she said against his lips. Peppering kisses across his face, she repeated, "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you."

He managed to push her back for just long enough to get the ring on her finger before she leapt at him again, kissing him as if her life depended on it.

If Nick were to be honest with you, he would tell you that the rest of February of 2014 passed by in a haze. When he looked back on it, all that he would really recall was a constant blur of celebratory just-engaged sex, congratulations from friends, more sex, more congratulations, a call with a disappointed but understanding pair of siblings, and of course more sex.

The details, he would decide later on, were not as important to him as he had thought they would be at the time.

Still, though, it was an important step in his life, an important step forward. In order to be honest, he would have to tell you that he wouldn't take back any bit of it, because throughout that month he was ridiculously happy the entire time, living on cloud nine.

* * *

_AN: I swear to God, Jeff is coming soon. All of this is necessary to bring him in._


	3. March

As much as Nick wanted to introduce Natalie to his family as soon as possible so that they would get off his case about marrying a girl no one had met, he knew it wasn't entirely feasible and wouldn't be for a while yet. He initially wanted to take her home with him during spring break, but she had obligations to go spend the week with her family, and he couldn't hold that against her.

So he did the next best thing: he told Charlie and Lacey to pick a time when they were both free, and he would get Natalie over to his dorm room and they could all Skype. It wasn't ideal, of course, since Nick was pretty sure that there was something about how Natalie's energy seemed to fill up a room when she walked in that wouldn't come across as easily with hundreds of miles of separation. But he still wanted them to get off his back about it, and he just knew that they would love her just as much as he did.

"I'm a little bit nervous," Natalie said with a quiet laugh, looking over at him as he booted up his laptop.

"Don't worry about it," he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek. "They are really nice. They'll love you."

"I certainly hope so," she said, biting her lip.

"They will," he insisted. "I've told you stories about them, remember? And didn't they sound like nice people?" He gave her a small smile to encourage her, lightly nudging her with his elbow.

"Yes, yes, they sound like nice people," she said with a nod, rolling her eyes at him. "But that doesn't mean that they are guaranteed to like me. I mean, my roommate last year? She was super nice. But she hated me."

"I think that might have had something to do with the fact that you apparently were much more of a night owl than she was. From what I understand, you didn't let her sleep," he said, chuckling softly.

"That isn't really a great reason to hate someone," she said with a shrug. "If she had come to me about it, we could've talked it out or something."

"Yeah, I don't know, maybe there was something else. But I know that _you _take sleep very seriously," he said, chuckling softly. He gave her a smile before looking back at the computer, pulling up Skype and logging in. Once he was logged in, he saw that Charlie's account was already signed in as well, and almost immediately he had an incoming video call from his brother. "You ready?" he asked, looking over at her.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Natalie said with a soft sigh, nodding.

"Alright," he said, smiling as he clicked the button to accept the call.

Nick couldn't help himself but to smile a bit more as the screen filled with his brother's face and then, slowly and with the confusion to technology usually reserved for the elderly, Lacey's, as well. It had been long enough since he had seen them that it made him ache just a bit to see the looks on their faces and how close they were to each other, their sides pressed up together on Charlie's bed.

"Hello, my sweet baby brother," Lacey greeted with a bright smile.

"You have _never_ spoken to me like that," he replied with a laugh. "Don't try and scare Nat into thinking that we talk like that."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied and chuckled softly, the sound crackling through his speakers.

"Charlie, give her a good shove for me," Nick said, rolling his eyes fondly at her.

Charlie did as he was told, and Lacey made a show of falling over as a result and then picking herself back up. Nick wrapped himself up in the feeling of seeing the both of them in front of him, so normal and real before his eyes, and it took Natalie clearing her throat (maybe the slightest bit uncomfortably, he'd think in hindsight) for him to remember why exactly he had planned this with them.

"Anyways," he said, wrapping an arm around his fiancee's shoulders and pulling her in closer to him. "Charlie, Lacey, this is Natalie. Natalie, these are Charlie and Lacey. I apologize in advance on their behalf."

"It's nice to meet you," Natalie greeted with a small wave at the camera. In the corner of Nick's screen, he watched the small, fuzzy feed from his camera with a small smile.

"I don't know what you think you're apologizing for," his brother said with a laugh. "You are every bit as bad as we are."

"That's just not true," he insisted. Looking over at Natalie, he smiled and repeated, "It's not true. I promise."

Natalie chuckled softly, shaking her head. "It's absolutely fine, Nick," she said. "I know that you can get a little bit... abstract, for lack of a better word."

"I prefer the term 'batshit crazy', myself, but I think that works out alright, too," Lacey said with a soft laugh. A moment passed where the four of them all exchanged smiles and laughter through the video, then Lacey got serious again as she went on, "Anyways, we need to start to get to know you."

"Okay," Natalie said with a nod, smiling softly.

"So, you're a year ahead of Nickster, right?" she asked.

"Yes, I am."

"And you're majoring in...?"

"Pre-Law," she answered. "My plan is to graduate from here, then head up to New York for Columbia law." Her words came easily to her, the same plan that Nick had heard her explain countless times, the same plan that he was fairly certain she had had since she could talk. Or at least for the past several years, much earlier than most other people even started to seriously consider their futures.

(Which was, actually, another reason that Nick felt so good about wanting to marry her: Natalie was exactly the kind of person who liked to make plans, and she stuck to her plans. She had once told him, in fact, that she wanted to marry young, definitely by twenty-five. He was becoming a part of her master plan, and that felt amazing.)

"Ah, so you're going to be a lawyer," Charlie said, nodding slowly. "That's really nice."

As Natalie smiled at his words and thanked him, Lacey raised her eyebrows slightly and she said, "Nick didn't tell us about that." He could almost hear her making some comment about lawyers not having souls, and he was just grateful that she didn't actually say anything of the sort out loud.

"Well, from what I understand, he didn't really tell you much about me at all," Natalie said, and it was just another testament to how patient and truly perfect she was that there was no hint of bitterness or irritation in her words.

"That's very true," Charlie said with a small nod. In spite of how Nick knew that he disapproved of him getting engaged to Natalie, he was still clearly making an attempt to make this more comfortable and positive for everyone as he said, "But I imagine it has something to do with the fact that he didn't think words alone were enough to do you justice. Besides, we can get to know you now."

Natalie smiled softly at his words, a soft giggle passing through her lips. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she laughed, and on the computer screen Nick could see the light catching on the small diamond on her ring. "That's true," she said. "So, what else would you like to know about me?"

"Well... Hm," Charlie started, pausing to consider the question. "Where's your family from?"

"Up in Oregon, actually," she said with a smile. "Not anywhere near Portland, though, just to be clear."

"Hey, I went to Portland a few times, it's pretty nice," Lacey said, shaking her head slightly.

"Oh, sure, but it's got that reputation, you know how it is," she said, shrugging.

Lacey nodded slowly, shrugging. "Anyways, any siblings?"

"Two brothers. One younger, one older."

The conversation went back and forth for a while, Natalie easily explaining who exactly she was to his siblings. After a while Nick decided to steer the conversation a bit, getting Lacey and Charlie to talk about themselves as well; even though Natalie seemed to be perfectly alright with facing the Spanish Inquisition, he thought it might make her a bit more comfortable to know a bit more about his background as well, to give all of them a bit more of an even footing in things.

When they disconnected the call after about an hour, Nick had a smile on his face as he kissed Natalie and said goodnight to her, feeling good about things now that Natalie and Lacey and Charlie had all met each other. It was no longer having over his head, and overall they seemed to get along pretty well, any of Lacey's misgivings notwithstanding. There was no outright animosity, anyways, and everything could be smoothed out over the years at Thanksgiving and other holidays.

* * *

Overall, Nick wasn't really much of a drinker. He found that he had better things to do with his time in general, and for the most part when he drank all that happened was that his body felt too hot and he got overly confused about simple things.

So to him, having a holiday that was celebrated almost exclusively by getting ridiculously intoxicated didn't really hold much appeal, especially not when a guy down the hall from him started telling anyone who would listen that the best hangover cure would be to simply drink more.

That said, he wasn't about to run around shitting on everyone else's St. Patrick's Day. Or even his fiancée's, even with the knowledge that alcohol made her feel a bit more... free-spirited. Natalie had asked him if he was interested in going out to some big party that a lot of the business students were holding, and as much as he loved spending time with her, he did not love spending time with people making drunken fools of themselves.

So instead of subjecting himself to that torture, he had told her to go ahead and go to the party without him, to find some friends to go with. She did, after all, have a lot of friends, and Nick was fairly certain there was some hidden textbook for girls out there that outlined proper party behavior, and it involved looking out for each other before anything else. He felt confident that it would work out and her friends would keep her out of trouble.

With that decision made, he also planned that he was going to stay in his dorm for essentially the entirety of St. Patrick's Day and the entire weekend the holiday was backed up against. Ideally, the only person he would have to face drunk was Bennett, and he was fairly certain that he could live with that.

He didn't mind the solitude, really. Especially considering the fact that for about the past month, he had spent what some might consider to be a ridiculous about of time with his fiancée. It wasn't that it felt too clingy or anything, hell, he _loved_ being able to be that close with a person that they could spend that much time together and still be excited by each other's company. No, the problem was purely in the fact that he was giving more attention to Natalie than he was to literally any of his classes.

Saturday was spent almost entirely just with one textbook after another on his lap as he caught up on work. Most parties were that night, seeing as St. Patrick's Day itself was on a Monday and getting wasted on a Monday when you had an 8 AM class the next day wasn't what most people considered pleasant.

Seeing how hungover and miserable Bennett was in the morning, Nick decided that he would indeed get out of the dorm that day.

He made a trip over to the grocery store over on Main, picking up some crackers, ibuprofen, and Gatorade before he made his way to Natalie's apartment. He smiled to himself as he headed up the stairs to her door with the grocery bag on his arm, fishing his keys out of his pocket so that he could let himself in.

Walking into the apartment and looking around, he saw that everything was about as he expected it to be: completely quiet and with a few things laying around, since Natalie couldn't be bothered to actually put things away neatly when she was drunk and stumbling in after a party.

Her roommate was sitting on the couch looking at something on her phone, and the girl only looked up briefly and gave Nick a small smile before returning her attention to whatever was on the screen in her hand.

Nick gave her a quick greeting, since he figured it was only polite despite not really knowing the girl very well beyond basic introductions and one night of hanging out, before going further into the apartment and making his way to Natalie's bedroom.

He fixed the bag on his arm to be more comfortable before opening the door and stepping inside. The sight that greeted him when he did so was enough to stop him in his tracks, and if he had been holding anything in his hands it would've promptly fallen to the ground.

In Natalie's bed, the girl was laying on top of the covers, entirely naked. It would've been a fairly welcome sight for him, if it wasn't for the equally naked man laying beside her, his tanner-than-Nick's arm slung across her waist.

And Nick, being far too forgiving for his own good, probably would've been willing to accept something that as a general rule. He might've gotten mad; no, he definitely would have gotten mad, but in the long run he knows that that feeling would not have lasted long and he would have forgiving Natalie for clearly having cheated on him. His mind went into overdrive in the milliseconds it took for him to realize what he had just walked into, coming up with reasons this _wasn't that bad_ and how she could be forgiven: she was drunk, she didn't really know what she was doing, maybe they hadn't had sex, really.

That is, of course, if it wasn't for the fact that both the people in the bed were clearly awake and still... enjoying themselves, hours after they should have been done drinking from the party Natalie had gone to.

A noise fell from Nick's throat, something that wasn't quite words. He cleared his throat and tried again, saying with a bit more conviction and confidence, "What the fuck, Natalie?"

There was a gasp from the bed and the man was quickly flung off of Nick's fiancee. "Nick, oh my god, hi," she said quickly, her voice too high in pitch and breathy the way she only should have been after running a marathon (just like they'd been planning on doing later in the spring). "It's not what it looks like. What are you doing here?"

He wasn't sure what to do with himself. No part of him had been ready to face this kind of thing, it had never even crossed his mind. So he just turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him even as a small part of him screamed to turn around and go back, that maybe just maybe they could fix this.

Nick couldn't really remember making his way back to his own dorm, almost feeling like he had just skipped the entire trip back and was just magically there.

He looked at Bennett all curled up in bed asleep, and he set the grocery bag he was still carrying down on his desk.

Slowly, his roommate opened up his eyes and looked over at him. "Hey," he mumbled before turning his face back into the pillow, groaning.

Nick let out a soft laugh as he looked at him, seeing the pure regret and anguish etched on his face left there by drinking God knew how much last night. "Hey, if you want anything that might help with that hangover, I've got some stuff for you in that bag," he offered quietly.

Bennett slowly sat up, reaching for the bag and pulling out the Gatorade and pain medicine. "Thanks," he said, giving him a smile. He pulled out the bottle of pills and swallowed a couple, downed half a bottle of Gatorade without removing it from his lips for a second, then slumped back down on his bed. "You're a true hero."

Nick rolled his eyes fondly at his roommate, letting out a soft laugh. "Just trying to help."

"Nah, man, you're literally a god among men, the nicest person to ever have lived," Bennett mumbled, his voice getting a bit lost somewhere in his pillow.

Nick chuckled softly as he went and sat down in his bed, grabbing a book as he settled back into his blankets. He watched Bennett (or rather watched the Bennett-shaped lump of blanket on Bennett's bed) for a bit longer before opening the book up and starting to read.

For most of the day, the pair of them stayed in the dorm, quiet except for a few cases of Bennett needing to vomit or Nick getting up to get something for him. By the evening, his roommate was feeling much more human and was willing to venture out of the room, saying that he needed to repay Nick for his nursing by treating him to a good dinner.

This "good dinner" turned out in the end to be simply a trip to a sandwich shop downtown, in equal parts due to Bennett's limited budget as a college student and increased sensitivity to foods for the time being. Still, though, it was fairly good, if plain, food paired with good company, and there was something reassuring about that. Just because something he had been so sure about had been tipped over on its head that morning, that didn't mean that everything else had to be, too. And when he told Bennett what had happened that morning, he just said, "You know, I wish I could say I'm surprised. But she _did_ have a bitch face. I'm just disappointed to find out you didn't just go out with the intention of getting supplies to help your poor, hungover roommate. I was your second choice, and that hurts." And that was that.

Nick was the sort of person who liked to think that everything was going to work out in the end, but at the same time he was realistic enough to know that things didn't always work out and fate wasn't always on your side. That day, though, March 18, 2014, it did, and it was. Instead of throwing more time and effort into a relationship with a dishonest girl, he took care of someone who genuinely appreciated the gesture and had nothing to hide from him.

And somehow, having made the choice to spend the day taking care of Bennett (though it made without even thinking, barely feeling like a decision) felt more right to him that he had ever felt about deciding to marry Natalie.

It was exhilarating.

* * *

Nick wasn't really sure that he was quite ready to actually deal with the fact that Natalie, his fiancée, the girl he was sure he was going to marry, had cheated on him.

He knew, logically, that he should probably try and talk things out with her before he did anything else about it, and especially before he told anyone about it, Bennett notwithstanding. Instead, though, he wanted to talk to people about it. It wasn't necessarily that he wanted to get people's advice or to commiserate or anything, he just wanted... He wasn't sure what exactly he wanted, but he was fairly sure that once he actually got down to it and started talking about it, then he would figure out what exactly he wanted.

His first instinct was to call Lacey. She was always the perfect person to talk to. Except for, of course, when what you want to talk about is a relationship she had never quite approved of. He didn't really want to hear her say "I told you so."

Still, though, there was something about the idea of the comfort of family familiarity that appealed to him, so he found himself dialing Charlie's number. After several rings, it cut to his voicemail message, so Nick hung up and tried again. At about the time he was going to give up and call it a day, he finally picked up.

"Hello?" answered a voice that was most definitely more feminine than his brother's had ever been, and after a second his mind registered the fact that he had gotten a hold of Lacey anyways.

"Hey, Lace," he greeted. "Where's Charlie?"

"Taking a shit, I think," his sister replied, and he could hear a bit of shuffling coming from her end of the line. "Yeah, I don't know. Probably taking a shit. What do you need, baby brother?"

"I just... wanted to talk," Nick replied.

"Mhm," she hummed. He could practically hear her quirking an eyebrow at his tone. "Just called to chat."

"Yeah."

"Which is why you called a few times."

"I wanted to make sure Charlie hadn't just missed it. Besides, why do you know that it was a few times? Did you just decide not to pick up?"

"Touché," she said, chuckling. After a moment, her tone sobered again. "Anyways, though, you're not getting out of this that easy. Something is bothering you. Is it a college thing? A girlfriend thing?"

Nick sighed softly, rolling his eyes fondly at her. "Don't worry about it," he said, even though he knew she would.

"What, there's something that you would talk to Charlie about but you wouldn't tell your big sister? I am very hurt, Nicole, very hurt."

"I don't think that you can say you're hurt and call me by a girl's name in the same sentence."

"I totally can," she said with a soft laugh. "I'm still upset about the fact that you turned out to not be the baby sister I had asked for."

Nick chuckled softly, rolling his eyes at her. "Right, my bad," he said. "But it's been over eighteen years, you should probably get over it my now."

"Get over it? Get- my word, Nick, you're... Totally distracting me again, damn," Lacey said, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "What's troubling you?"

Nick let out a long sigh, resigning himself to his fate. Sure, talking to Charlie first about what Natalie had done would've been easier, but it was just a matter of time before Lacey would know, too, and she wasn't going to just let him out of it, so he realized that his best option was to simply tell her. "It's something with Natalie."

"Ooh, ouch," she said. "Is it a sex thing?"

Nick couldn't help himself but to laugh. "It's... Sort of."

"It's perfectly normal to not be able to get it up sometimes. Maybe you've just been having too much sex for poor little Nick Jr. to keep up," she said, her voice pure teasing.

"Actually, no, it's not that," he said. "I haven't been having too much sex. Natalie has, though."

Lacey didn't say anything for a moment, and the clock Bennett had hung up was ticking loudly on the other side of the room. "What?" she asked after a bit.

"She cheated on me," he said, the words feeling foreign and just _wrong_ on his tongue. "I walked in on her and some guy."

There was another stretch of silence, this one stretching out a bit longer. He knew that some part of Lacey was happy, the part that liked being right and knew that this was a bad idea and that the relationship had been all but doomed from the start. Still, though, he was sure that a bigger part of her was telling her to be a good sister, to help her brother deal with what had happened.

"You _saw_?" she asked him after a bit, frowning.

"I… yeah," Nick said, letting out a heavy sigh. "I mean, I didn't really see anything too… revealing or anything, but I definitely walked in on something that there was no question about."

"That sucks," she said.

Neither of them said anything for a bit after that, and he just had to be grateful that she knew him well enough to know that there was nothing she could really say to make him feel better, and quite a few things that could make him feel worse.

After a bit, though, she had to speak. "So, you're broken up now, then?" she asked.

"Well…" he started, hesitating to say anything. "Not technically."

"Not technically?" Lacey echoed, her voice going up a little bit, although he was fairly certain that she was still making an attempt to reign herself in for him.

"We haven't talked since," he said. "If you'd even call that talking. We didn't really talk much. I mostly just wanted to get out of there."

"I can understand that," she replied, sighing. After a moment, she added, "You really should officially break things off with her, though."

"I know, I know," he said, even as a quiet part of his mind revolted at the idea, wanting to take Natalie back and forgive her for her mistake (because it was a mistake, wasn't it? She would think that it was a mistake, she had to).

"As in, soon," she said. "I know you, you like to put off things that are hard. Especially things that are conflicts with other people. But you really do have to do this."

Nick chuckled softly, shaking his head slowly. "I know," he said. "And I am. I really am." It didn't really matter to him that some part of him was lying to his sister, because another part of him really did have the full intention of cutting things off with Natalie and taking the ring off her finger, so it wasn't really a lie, right?

"Good," she said. There was a moment of static across the line as she moved, and he could hear her voice quieter, joined with what he was pretty sure was Charlie's voice. He couldn't make out what she was saying, her hand probably on the receiver of the phone, but he was fairly certain that she was telling him what had happened.

After a little bit longer, there was another shuffle of movement before he heard his brother sigh into the phone and say, "Well, that's unfortunate."

Lacey laughed in the background at Charlie's choice of words, and Nick couldn't help but agree with her to an extent.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunate," he said, his tone picking up a hint of bitterness that he hadn't meant to put into it.

"Sorry," he said.

Nick sighed, shaking his head slowly even though he knew that Charlie couldn't see him. "No, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just, you know, I feel like I could've done something."

"If someone is the sort of person who is going to cheat, there's nothing you can do to stop it," he said. "It's just better that it happened and you found out sooner rather than later, right?"

"I guess so," he said with a sigh, even though he was still convinced in his heart of hearts that maybe just maybe if he had gone out with Natalie to that party instead of staying in, this wouldn't have happened.

"So… I just wanted to make sure that you knew that me and Lace are totally here for you if and when you ever want to talk," Charlie said.

Those words managed to bring a small smile to his lips. "I know."

"Any idea when you're going to… you know, break up with her?" he asked.

"Tonight," he said after taking a deep breath and letting it back out slowly. "I'm going to do it tonight."

"Good," he said. "It's the right thing to do."

"I hope so."

"I know so," Charlie said. "Anyways, I'm going to let you go now. Eat a good meal, comfort foods, ice cream, whatever you want to do."

* * *

He didn't break up with her that night.

In fact, he didn't even talk to her that night.

It wasn't until his phone went off several days (he didn't want to think about what his siblings would say if they found out) later that he even really considered seriously approaching just _talking_ to her.

From Nat:  
We should probably talk things out.

Nick really didn't want to. He didn't want to go over to Natalie's apartment, he didn't want to talk to her about what had happened, and he didn't want to break up with her. At this point, he just wanted to _be_ broken up with her, to forget that any of this had ever happened.

But still, he knew that he had to. And if a small part of him was still quietly holding onto the hope that maybe Natalie had some great excuse or she would fall to her knees and beg for him to take her back and he would have no choice in the matter, he probably wouldn't admit to it out loud.

Shortly after texting her back and informing her that he would be at her apartment in about half an hour (he had considered asking her what her plans were and if there was a good time for her to do this, but he decided in the end to instead do what Lacey would do and not give her an option—"you owe her nothing, Nick, nothing," his sister would say), he headed out to head over there.

On the walk up the stairs to her door, he pulled the key off of its place on his loop of keys, knowing that that was no longer _its place_, really. He opened the door, only feeling a slight pang of sadness at the realization that it was quite likely that that was going to be the last time that he unlocked that door and walked into a place that had until now felt like a second home.

Once again, Natalie's roommate was in the main room when he walked in. This time, though, when she looked up and saw who was there, she got up quickly and made her way over to him. "Nick!"

"Um… Molly," he said, furrowing his brow in confusion.

The girl glanced behind her towards Natalie's closed door, her voice lowered as she said, "I'm guessing that you're here to talk to Natalie about, well, you know what?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah…"

"Well, that's good. She's been a huge mess since," Molly said, sighing and shaking her head. After a second, her eyes went wide and she backtracked quickly, "But I'm not saying that to sway you not to break up with her or anything. It's just a fact."

"Then what _is_ the point here?" he asked, realizing a moment too late that he sounded a bit too hostile.

"The point is," she said with a sigh, lowering her voice even more. "I want you to go into that conversation with all the cards on the table, because I know that she'll want to keep some up her sleeve."

"What cards?"

"This isn't the only time that she has cheated on you," she said, glancing over her shoulder again quickly. "I don't know how many times, I don't know many specifics, but I can tell you that much. It was definitely not the first time."

Nick just looked at the girl for a moment, trying to search her face for answers. She couldn't be telling the truth, could she? Natalie had cheated on him once, sure, but that was a fluke. It was just a bad night, it was a one-off. Even as he tried to tell himself that this was the truth, he could see in Molly's face that she was being honest, for whatever reason.

He let out a long breath, taking a step back from her as he felt anger bubbling up inside of him. "Thank you," he said before walking past her, knowing that there was nothing she had done wrong and if he stayed talking to her for any longer she would end up in the middle of a situation she was just an innocent bystander in.

So instead of taking out that hurt and betrayal on Molly, he went and he swung open Natalie's bedroom door and he couldn't even be bothered to flinch as he heard the door bang against the wall with the force he'd put into it.

When he stepped into her room, he was faced with a sight that stopped him in his tracks for a moment. Natalie was standing there wearing the same dress that she had worn for their first date. It was white and lacy and beautiful.

But he had taken a fair few English classes in his time, and he knew all too well the symbolism behind the color white, had left annotations in enough pieces of literature about the meaning of someone dressed in all white. _White = Innocence. Purity. Cleanliness._ It was no coincidence when authors of great literature did it, and he was fairly sure that it wasn't when she did it, either.

As he took in the sight of her, her fingers starting to curl in the fabric of her skirt, he remembered the fact that white had more meanings than just what immediately came to mind. In Eastern cultures, he had learned at some point, white could mean death, and for once he could appreciate the pointless trivia taking up space in his head.

"Nick," she said, a small smile on her lips.

"Natalie," he said in return. He sighed softly before adding, "You cheated on me."

Her face immediately fell. "Nick… That was a mistake," she said. "You have to know how sorry I am, it will never happen again…"

"Because it only happened the once, right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Natalie opened her mouth to reply, and for a moment he was sure that she was going to try to lie to him again, to tell him that it really was the only time, but he could see in her face that she reconsidered it, knowing she was caught. "How do you know about that?" she asked instead, furrowing her eyebrows.

"It doesn't matter."

"I really am sorry."

"If you were sorry, then you wouldn't have done it."

She didn't say anything for a moment, so he pressed on.

"Do you really not have anything to say to me?" he asked. "Just that you're sorry."

"I have no idea what to say, Nick," she said. "I have no idea how to make this better."

"You can't," he said with a shrug. "But I'm just surprised you're not trying. You're going to be a lawyer, aren't you? You're supposed to be good with defenses."

She looked down at her feet, shuffling a bit uncomfortably.

"I'm sorry that things turned out like this," he said, his tone a bit gentler. Even with how upset he was with her, he knew that part of him would never let him get angry at her, would never let him wound her, especially when she was already upset. "If things had gone differently, I could have loved you all my life."

She took in a deep breath, letting it back out slowly. "You… You still could, couldn't you?" she asked. "Those feelings are still there, somewhere."

"No, I couldn't," he told her, giving her a sad smile. "I would never be able to look at you without wondering what you might be doing when I'm not there. Once, I could've forgiven. God knows how many times… I can't. I'm sorry."

"I would be loyal," she said. "I promise, I would. This… This is so hard. I don't want to lose you."

"You already did," he said, shaking his head slowly. "This… This is over."

Nick followed Natalie's gaze down to the ring on her left hand finger, and both of them just stood there and stared at it for a moment.

"Do you want it back?" she asked, her voice just barely audible over the quiet roar of her fan.

"I don't care," he said, shrugging. "You can keep it, sell it, give it back, do whatever you want with it. Just don't wear it anymore."

Natalie nodded slowly, lifting her other hand slowly to rip the ring off of her finger. She held it out to him, placing it in his palm. She closed his fingers around the piece of metal, her hand lingering on his.

He couldn't help it. He leaned forward slowly, his free hand cupping her face as he gave her a long, soft kiss. It was nearly as tentative as their first kiss ever. He liked that. Bookends.

As they pulled back, she whispered, "I love you."

With a sigh, he replied, "Goodbye, Natalie."

He turned around and walked out of the room, slipping the ring into his pocket as he left her apartment for the last time ever.

* * *

_AN: This is the last chapter without Jeff. He makes his first appearance in April, I promise._


End file.
